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You hate to hear news like this at anytime, but especially during such a trying time for the sport and those critics who claim it's too dangerous. Not to sound unsympathetic or sick I think I would like to see film on the injury to see if it was bad technique, bad form, or just an accident all together. Unfortunately, injuries like this could potentially happen to anyone on a football field at any time. Just curious to see how the media takes this one and runs with it. It will also be I tweeting to see if his coaches get thrown under the bus (if bad technique). Terrible loss, thoughts and prayers.

had bad enough technique to die from a tackle, then you'd expect a tragedy like this to happen more often, with all the worse players with worse techniques dropping like flies.

So I think that regardless of seeing the film (which, the idea of wanting to see the film so you can determine who to blame sounds pretty bad if you think about what you're saying), we can safely conclude this was a freak accident, and an unimaginable loss.

Well it looks like the media was already running with it when you decided to start running with it. The CNN (linked) article said the following:

"Deaths from high school football are exceedingly rare.

Over the last 10 years, an average of fewer than three boys a year have died from on-field injuries playing high school football, according to the National Center for Catastrophic Sport Injury Research at the University of North Carolina.

No players died in 2012, the first time that had happened since 1994, according to the center."

Here's a different argument that I'm having a hard time articulating my thought, but I'll try:

Since it's such a freak, one-time, instantaneous accident, it's irrelevant how it happened. Even though it happened playing football, it's so rare and isolated that it really doesn't have anything to do with the controversy currently surrounding football.

To me, saying "he died doing something he loved" in regards to football would be more like playing football for years and years, until the concussions bring on all those nasty dementia diseases and you die. An analogy would be smoking cigarettes and eventually dying from lung cancer.

In this case, an analogy to me would be more like someone went to light a cigarette and the lighter blew up in their face and killed them. It wouldn't have happened if that person didn't want that cigarette, and fire and flames and all that are a danger of cigarettes, but it would be so rare that it doesn't really have anything to do with smoking.

Look, we live in a gigantic country with millions of people. Every physical activity has a risk of serious injury, from hiking to running, to baseball and football. Put the two together and you'll get a tragic story once in awhile.

Does that mean we shouldn't feel bad when it happens? No, of course not. This is a sad thing that happened. It also doesn't mean we need to reevaluate it. Over a million kids play high school football.

Upfront, as a parent of a football player, I want to say I am sorry to hear this tragedy has ocurred, and completely respect what the family, both teams, and freinds of the player must be going through.

Between 2002 and 2012, according to the University of North Carolina Center for Catastrophic Sport Injury Research, there were an average of 3.8 fatalities a year directly attributable to football, fewer than for weight lifting (an average of 6.3 fatalities a year) or even amusement park rides (4.4 fatalities a year). Mountain climbing produces more fatalities—an average of 25 a year. So does horseback riding, with more than 100 deaths a year, to say nothing of bicycle riding, which killed 677 people in 2011 alone, and swimming, which kills more than 3,500 people a year.

Later it says the players are way more likely to die driving to and from the game or practice.

The one thing I wish the article had included was soccer, baseball and hockey statistics. I found in the UNC Center for Catastrophic Sports Injury data here mentioned by the WSJ article, playing football in high school makes you 3x more likely to die than baseball or soccer / 100000 players. Hockey is about the same, LAX a little less, and gymnastics is 3.3x more than football or hockey. Serious Injury rates are highest for hockey and gymnastics. Football is a close third. Soccer and baseball way lower.

Other articles I have read have said soccer is one of the leading causes of ACL injury for women, and overall the concussion rate in soccer is as high as any other sport.

So I guess the bottom line is they should ban mens gymnastics - it is such a barbarian blood sport.

There wouldn't be enough ambulances and EMTs to go around if every school for every game or scrimmage had to have them on the premises waiting for the possibility that a serious injury might take place.

That used to be the case until about five or six years ago. The cost of having the ambulance there now just cost some school districts more than they can afford. I've seen a kid with a neck injury lay on the field for an hour and another for about 45 minutes after breaking his ankle (was very similar to Fitz's injury last year). Some towns don't even have an ambulane or EMT any more because it has all become privatized. Last year our booster club paid to have an ambulance at our games.

Thoughts with the family, I don't think there is anything harder than losing a child on this earth. If people are blamming bad technique for his death, that is no excuse for the sport being safe. There shouldn't be the kind of risk. I love football, but something in the game has to change.

I get what you're saying but these parents and kids know the risk. There a risk to driving a car as well. Many people die in car accidents but that doesn't mean we should stop driving or drop the speed limits down to 20 mph. Tragic events like this unfortunately happen but thankfully they're not all that common.

So does baseball. DO recall that third base coach who was killed by a line drive a couple of years ago.

People die during marathans, Lancer. Physical activity has an element of risk to it no matter what you do. Granted, there is far more risk to football than any sport save hockey, but there is risk in every sport nonetheless.

As a football coach, I'm afraid that something bad is going to happen to one of my players before my career ends. The worst thing to happen on the field so far is a broken leg (and it was nasty, but still just a leg and he's recovered now). Every time one of our players tackles with his head low, our staff gangs up on him and lets him know that it's the wrong way to tackle. That's one thing I appreciate about the guys I work with. If a guy misses a block or doesn't hustle or runs the wrong route, one or two coaches will get on his case. If a guy tackles in a dangerous manner, every coach in the vicinity will let him know. Still, accidents happen, and it's tragic what happened to the kid in the OP.

Really sad news. Hate to see anything like this.. when I played middle school ball there was a kid who would always lead with his head down, my coach st the time called it spearing. Told him numerous times to cut it out and taught him proper technique. Over the summer going into 8th grade that same kid broke his neck while playing a pick up game of football because he was spearing.

Really tragic man. Can't imagine what the family is going through right now. Bless his soul.

My heart goes out to his family, friends, and teammates. I don't like the comments about improper technique, or any other blaming angle I've read here and other places. It was a freak accident, no blame on his coaches, the player he tackled, or dagnabit on him.